IF YOU think the last 12 months have been tough on you, spare a thought for the poor celebrities struggling with big questions like ‘who am I, without Wembley Stadium saying ‘you’re awesome’?’

This is what has been troubling Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, while you have been losing sleep over financial worries or job fears, or stressing about your children’s mental health.

In an interview on Zoe Ball’s BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, the perpetually mystifying Martin said the pandemic had forced him to reassess his relationship with fame.

“Last year was a quite an eye opener,” he said. “I’m trying in my life right now to not attach too much to being a pop star. I’m trying not to get my self-worth from external validation.”

This from a man whose band has just released its new single ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION because they have “been trying to imagine what music might sound like on other planets.”

Those who have an obsession with fame – having one’s name up in lights, being seen on the red carpet at this premiere or that gala – must really be suffering in a world without glittering opening nights or adoring crowds.

I read an interesting story recently about an actor called Elizabeth Sellars, who was born in Glasgow and who starred alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando.

She was very astute, never losing sight of the fact fame was ‘a fickle game’ and after a number of successful roles in the US, she turned down a contract with MGM to return to Britain to appear on stage and TV.

“They were not interested in promoting you unless you agreed to a long-term ­contract,” she once said. “I never saw myself as a superstar, but perhaps if I had accepted, I might have become one.”

Over the last year, what it means to be a superstar has changed – for a while there, the most famous people on the planet included a 100-year-old veteran who walked around his garden raising money for the NHS and the Handford Parish Council members whose meeting descended into shouty chaos.

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We have been more enchanted by Captain Sir Tom Moore, Jackie Weaver and cute toddlers interrupting their parents’ live broadcasts on the news than watching some D-list reality ‘star’ taking his daily walk, or popping down to the local shop for her milk and bacon.

The stars who stayed in our line of sight were the ones who didn’t take themselves too seriously, and who understood that all we really needed in lockdown was a bit of a laugh or a bit of a dance – step forward Sophie Ellis Bextor and her kitchen discos, or Janey Godley and her Nicola Sturgeon briefing voiceovers.

Maybe our love affair with celebrity culture is ending.

Or maybe we have just finally worked out who the real celebrities are.

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